CUNY Library Standard Number Lookup Service

This service provides an easy way to extract data from Aleph based on standard numbers combined with the various local and union search bases in the Aleph system. A number of of linking options and formats are available, the basic view will provide you with an HTML representation of the standard number search results. In addition to the default HTML view the following other two formats are available:

json

xml

The service pulls relevant information from the items bibliographic, holdings, and item records. More data can be added to the view if it is required upon request. The JSON or XML format is appropriate for use by a client application that might wish to use this information in some useful way. An example use case for this service would be a mobile library application that wish provide Aleph holdings and item status data for known items in a given set of search results.

The Office of Library Services plans to use this service to expose this information to two applications

Service parameters

The service provides a real-time check of circulation item status. This requires a unique query to the aleph system for each matching item in the result set.

With the exception of the title search option all lookups return all matched items.

When using the cun01 base in conjunction with widely held titles the service will return results slowly. This is a result of the attempt to provide a real-time availability status for each item.

The examples below present the various available standard number indexes and how to use them in conjunction with with the three available formats and the aleph local base indexes available. The actual searching is accomplished through the Aleph Search Retrieve URL (SRU) Service. For further documentation on local bases and the SRU server consult the following:

Aleph Bibliographic Identifier

This lookup uses the unique numeric aleph bibliographic system identifier. Since this number is unique the lookup will work in either the cun01 base or in the base of the campus library that actually owns the record in question. In the examples below "city" and "baruch" are the owning sub-libraries.

Ebrary ID Number

Link based on Ebrary ID number stored in 035 field. This field has been input in different fashions. AL loaded records have used one prefix strategy for denoted Ebrary IDs, records loaded prior to 2009 used another:

(Ebr)ebr10211345AL - for Central Records

ebr10211345 - For Records loaded for Lehman, Baruch, Brooklyn, and Grad School of Journalism prior to 2009.

Serials Solutions ID Number

Serials Solutions MARC records for electronic journals all have a unique ID embedded in the 035 MARC field. The schematic used to denote Serials Solutions IDs in this field takes the following form (WaSeSS)ssj{ID Number}{Campus OWN Code}. Example 035 fields for Serials Solutions Records:

(WaSeSS)ssj0003884AL - for Central Office CUN01 Records

(WaSeSS)ssj0003884BC - for Brooklyn College

(WaSeSS)ssj0003884SI - for College of Staten Island

Note: All three of the above records have the same Serials Solutions ID "0003884" but have a unique Aleph system number.